TV Review: THE 100: Season 2, Episode 2: Inclement Weather [The CW]

The CW’s The 100 Inclement Weather TV Show Review. The 100: Season 2, Episode 2: ‘Inclement Weather,’ opened with what was likely the single most important reveal of the series, so far. To be clear, I’m referring to the brand new title sequence; but more on that later.

What I can say about it, up front, was that it pretty much confirmed that the Ark’s former Chancellor, Thelonius Jaha (Isaiah Washington), still has a role to play – at least for another season – which made the somewhat baffling end, to the season premiere, the first step on his way back from the brink.

You might it call it that, sure; but given the circumstances of his predicament, and that final, curtailed image of his dead son, the whole affair had to smack of metaphysical motivation, for me to make any sense of it. I’m referring, this time, to the sudden appearance of an abandoned infant, just as Jaha was resigning himself to a slow death, on what was left of the evacuated Ark. Nothing like delivering the helpless from doom, to motivate oneself out of the same situation. The child not only gave Jaha a reason to save himself, it somehow reminded him that he even could. It was almost like… divine intervention (that’s what the Bullpen was going for, wasn’t it?). Well, clearly the message was too subtle. Jaha’s inspiration needed a voice (for our sake, I’m guessing). Questions of bodily decompression, the flash-freezing coldness of space, and the logistics to the mode of escape, were all meant to take a backseat to the triumph of mind & spirit.

Awright.

While Jaha went about re-entry (to both series & surface), events on the ground were split between Kane’s (Henry Ian Cusick) efforts, to get a functioning garrison going, Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) attempting to make good on Lincoln’s (Ricky Whittle) efforts, made on her behalf, and Clarke’s (Eliza Taylor) contemplation of an Eden with no Serpent.

Between the coed bunk situation, at Mt. Weather, and “being floated” now likely having a more pleasant meaning (given the lakefront property for Kane’s garrison, and all), there should be an impending spike in childbirths, like the Baby Boom gone nuclear; but the showrunners have more immediate matters to get through.

Kane’s problem came from three directions. The history between the Exiles would not be arbitrated by his authority, Abigail (Paige Turco) was already resuming her questioning of that authority, and the Grounders were already putting his garrison on siege footing. As well armed & militarized, as Kane’s security detail was, it seems like military history wasn’t well covered, back on the Ark. Basic knowledge of guerrilla warfare – particularly when setting up a primitive fort, in “Indian country” – could have spared the garrison an effectively horrific welcoming gesture, by the Grounders. While that convinced Kane of the need to secure the garrison, first & foremost, it did little to make Bellamy (Bob Morley), Finn (Thomas McDonell), and Abigail reconsider Clarke, Octavia, and the other Exiles, as the top priority. Abigail has lost the moral high ground, on this one; I’m backing Kane’s logic, over her emotion. With Abigail’s help, however, and Murphy’s (Richard Harmon) time as turncoat making him an asset, the garrison’s Exiles snuck out.

Octavia had finally come out of her delirium, only to find herself in an unfamiliar Grounder’s care. Nyko (Ty Olsson) claimed to be a friend of Lincoln, and was taking care of her as a favor, while Lincoln paid the price for bringing her back to be treated. This did not sit well with Octavia. As the character most defined by always having something to prove, she now decided to prove her commitment to Lincoln, by making his friend – her healer – a hostage. Rock or no rock, she was neither well enough, nor anywhere near Nyko’s weight class, to take him down as easily as she did. Maybe he’s a whole lot gentler than he looks. I’m also assuming that there was a standing hold fire order (to the flanking Grounder guard), ’cause she seemed wide open, while using Nyko as a bargaining shield. Something about him being their only healer, conveniently enough.

Well, clearly, no honorable deed goes unpunished. On top of Nyko’s house call going south, Grounder honcho, Indra’s (Adina Porter) decision, in agreeing to deliver Lincoln by herself, wound up costing them both Nyko & Lincoln. At first, I thought this to be the Reaper’s warped take on Pizza jacking; but the fact that they took the big dudes – ignoring two surprised & overwhelmed women, in the process – left me wondering if the Reapers had their own standing orders to follow.

At Mt. Weather, Clarke wasn’t having any fun, because her fellow Exiles were having too much of it to indulge her wariness. Worse, her latest Nancy Drew discovery was covered up convincingly enough to make her really start to question her take on the situation. Switching between bullet & arrow wounds was one thing, but full body radiation burns don’t go away easy. Why the Mt. Weather people didn’t account for such a miracle making Clarke double take, in ways the Human spine doesn’t allow for, I can’t say; but it made the oft referred to ‘treatment,’ of various Weatherpersons, the center of Clarke’s attention. She was determined to find out what lay Beneath the Planet of the Ape descendants, and that meant another trip to the infirmary.

Clarke was finding more uses for her own blood than a Vampire, but the Weathermen seemed to have something similar – but much more far reaching – in mind. As far as they were concerned, “anti-radiation dialysis is people.”

– And Anya (Dichen Lachman). Dialysis was people like Anya.

While I still wait for the show’s title to make sense, again, I am heartened by the implications of that new title sequence. What started out as a tweeny edition of Lord of the Flies-meets-Mutiny on the Bounty, seems clearly headed for something much more potent, and ambitious in scale. It promises (to me, anyway) to take the series away from pettier themes of romantic musical chairs, turf posturing, and scratching a living from the bare bones of borderline savagery. Given the multiple settings (including Jaha’s remote touchdown point), the show even promises to go beyond the next logical step – the birth pains of establishing a colony – to culture clash of the grandest scale: Manifest Destiny.

If that’s the case, then The 100 may yet turn a corner – from getting my attention, to having my wholehearted interest.

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About the author

Sam Joseph

Sam is an Avid consumer/observer of Geek culture, and collector of Fanboy media from earliest memory. Armchair sociologist and futurist. Honest critic with satirical if not absurdist­­ wit with some experience in comics/ animation production.